The 20 Greatest Title Sequences of All-Time

Everybody has to do one of these lists, right? I've been thinking about it for a while and decided it was time to just throw it out there. 
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Really my only rule when compiling this list was making sure that I had actually seen every movie that I put on the list. Therefore, I didn't go trolling around Youtube just watching credits sequences. These are films that I have a great appreciation for that I've all seen at least once and could recall them from memory. Oh yeah, and the quality of the film (as you'll see) has no bearing on their place on this list. So here we go:


(IF A VIDEO WILL NOT PLAY DUE TO EMBEDDING RESTRICTIONS, SIMPLY FOLLOW THE LINK TO WATCH ON YOUTUBE.)
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#20

"ROSEMARY'S BABY"

Title Sequence Designed by Wayne Fitzgerald and Stephen Frankfurt

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A spare, almost shrill lullaby plays over delicate, pink titles against the Manhattan skyscape to begin Polanski's paranoid masterwork. The fact that it's so clearly Mia Farrow - and that it plays again at the end - makes it all the more indelible. 
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#19

"RAGING BULL"

Title Sequence Designed by Dan Perri

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Pietro Mascagni's "Intermezzo" from Cavalleria rusticana has quite the presence over Martin Scorsese's brutal, elegant boxing drama, never as prominently as in the opening few minutes, set to a slow-motion view of Robert De Niro's Jake La Motta bouncing in the ring.
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#18

"THE GETAWAY"

Title Sequence Designed by Latigo Productions

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Featuring Sam Peckinpah's stop-and-start visuals and a pervasive sound design, this sequence quite brilliantly sets up this underrated masterwork from one of the greatest (and notoriously divisive) filmmakers of the 60's and 70's. 
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(Opening credits are about the first five minutes of the below video.)
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#17

"SPIDER-MAN"

Title Sequence Designed by Ahmet Ahmet

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Danny Elfman may show up later here, but his opening title compositions have always been works of art since he began collaborating with Tim Burton back in the 80's. The soft, comic-style renderings of the titles to "Spider-Man 2" are certainly a bit easier on the eyes than these rough CG spider webs, yet I decided to go with the original here.
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#16

"FORBIDDEN PLANET"

Title Sequence Designed by Somebody

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Certainly the most spare, musically-neglectful title sequence on this list, these ominous titles, utilizing groundbreaking sound effects, are far more effective than Bernard Herrman's theremin. 
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#15

"THE SOCIAL NETWORK"
Title Sequence Designed by Neil Kellerhouse

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David Fincher is a firm believer in the title sequence and his best, thanks to the lovely, exquisite Trent Reznor track, is the sequence for "The Social Network". Featuring Jesse Eisenberg's Mark Zuckerberg jogging across campus, the titles quite brilliantly foreshadow the subject's impending burst of creativity, invention.
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(The sequence isn't available online anywhere, but I'm sure you've seen it anyway if you're reading this, below is simply the audio track.)
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#14

"HIGH NOON"

Title Sequence Designed by Somebody

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Tex Ritter's familiar jingly-jangly theme song plays ironically over the menacing, no frills meeting between three baddies about to ride into town. The song's lyrics paint the picture to come, but the melody and instrumentation are equally sincere, foreboding. 
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#13

"THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN ARM"

Title Sequence Designed by Saul Bass

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My favorite of Saul Bass' titles for Otto Preminger, this is one of the premier examples of the jazzy, Saul Bass black-and-white jagged-edge aesthetic. 
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#12

"SPARTACUS"

Title Sequence Designed by Saul Bass

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One of his more unique sequences, these austere, four-minute titles feature an epic Alex North piece over sparsely-lit images of sculptured features and scripture. 
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#11

"PSYCHO"

Title Sequence Designed by Saul Bass

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Fleet, frenzied and helter-skelter, this marks the first Saul Bass/Alfred Hitchcock collaboration on this list, and you can bet it won't be the last. The Bernard Herrman track screeches and shrieks with Bass' shuffling, migrating lines and words struggling to keep up, assimilating in front of us. 
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#10

"ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13"

Title Sequence Designed by Somebody

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I know I'm going to catch flack for this, but I believe John Carpenter's title sequences, especially this one, to be criminally overlooked. There's really no design to speak of (it's just red type against a black background), but his timing to his resoundingly unforgettable snyth score is so remarkable and majestic that it takes a hold of you. 

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#9

"McCABE AND MRS. MILLER"

Title Sequence Designed by Anthony Goldschmidt

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Leonard Cohen's "Song of Leonard Cohen" fits Robert Altman's 1971 anti-Western so snugly that it's a miracle they weren't composed with one another in mind. This opening sequence so fitfully arranges a unique version of Cohen's "The Stranger Song" (there's a rare instrumental break that can be heard here) that it forever has ingrained itself to Zsigmondi's images of a clumsy, bumbling Warren Beatty riding into town.
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#8

"WATCHMEN"

Title Sequence Designed by Garson Yu

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There's a lot wrong with Zack Snyder's elegantly-styled, clumsily-told adaptation of Alan Moore's "Watchmen," including his taste in music, but this opening title sequence, featuring Bob Dylan's "Times Are 'A Changing" is quite brilliant. In just under six-minutes, it helps to establish the graphic novel's convoluted, decades-long mythology by placing its superheroes at the scene of some of the country's most historically relevant scenes. 
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#7

"NORTH BY NORTHWEST"

Title Sequence Designed by Saul Bass

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Saul Bass' use of line and color here is impeccable, as he once again matches Herrman's bombastic brass stride-for-stride. That it eventually turns into an establishing shot of an office building is just icing on the cake.

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#6

"PLANET OF THE APES"

Title Sequence Designed by Robert Dawson

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Tim Burton's 2001 remake of "Planet of the Apes" is a stiff, god-awful big-budget calamity, yet if you're just watching the opening credits (set to a bombastic Danny Elfman piece) you wouldn't know it.
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(The sequence isn't uploaded anywhere, below is simply the main title track from Danny Elfman.)
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#5

"EXPERIMENT IN TERROR"

Title Sequence Designed by Somebody

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Henry Mancini composed some remarkable pieces for films in the 60's, and Blake Edward's against-type, thoroughly-effective San Francisco-based procedural fits Mancini's noirish jazz tune like a glove. That you get some silky black-and-white images of the Golden Gate Bridge is an added bonus.
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#4

"ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST"

Title Sequence Desgined by Somebody

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Sergio Leone's ode to the American West is, in this viewer's opinion, one of finest filmmaking feats of all-time - skillful, composed, operatic - and this over ten-minute title sequence is the perfect introduction. Just listen to that sound design and watch his camera - magically stuff.
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#3

"VERTIGO"

Title Sequence Designed by Saul Bass

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The holy grail of title sequences, it seems like. It's hard to argue when it so perfectly captures Hitchcock's film about identity, obsession and the deadly allure of the female figure. Floating around a woman's facial feature and popping up titles synched to one of the greatest musical pieces (and scores) of all-time, this one's a keeper.
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#2

"ARABESQUE"

Title Sequence Designed by Maurice Binder

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Seldom seen, this title sequence features one helluva track by Henry Mancini set to a kaleidoscope of colors and optical tricks by notable trickster Maurice Binder. That the film, a dull stab at capturing the globe-trotting espionage of late Hitchcock, is pretty much a complete misfire, only seems to elevate its opening titles.
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#1

"THE SPY WHO LOVED ME"

Title Sequence Designed by Maurice Binder

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Ah yes, there just had to be some James Bond on here, right? On the whole, I'm not really a huge fan of the big, hallucinogenic Shirley Bassey Bond titles, but the second I heard Carly Simon's "Nobody Does It Better," I was in love. 

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Set against trampolining silhouettes and babes twirling off gun-barrels, the sequence captures the sexy, romanticized espionage of not only the film, but the series and the character of James Bond. Enjoy.
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Honorable Mention:

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"Footloose"

"Escape From New York"

"Lolita"

"Days of Heaven"

"Gone With the Wind"

"Where Eagles Dare"

"Zombieland"

"Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory"

"The Third Man"

Best of 2011: The Films

Truthfully, 2011 was a year that produced very few great films, even fewer good ones and a surplus of decent ones. Thus, making a Top 20 list was more a reach than in year's past, yet like every year, the great films are there - you just have to look for them. 
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#20

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"DETECTIVE DEE AND THE MYSTERY OF THE PHANTOM FLAME"

Directed by Tsui Hark

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Tusi Hark's fantastical-historical Chinese epic is one big, grandiose achievement, if nor nothing else, that it manages to take a story so fanciful and chimerical and yet unburdened by the esoterics of its mythology even to a Western audience. Credit mainly goes to the film's gravity-defying choreography and magnificently-staged set-pieces, which supersede Chinese politics and shifting alliances.

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#19

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"MONEYBALL"

Directed by Bennett Miller

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There's nothing truthfully wrong about Bennett Miller's oft-obstructed "Moneyball" (based on Michael Lewis' 2003 book on the re-inventive Oakland Athletics), but the fact remains that I believe it to be a film lesser than the sum of its parts. Even still, Brad Pitt and the wily-yet-redundant Zaillian and Sorkin screenplay manage to make inside-baseball sabermetrics compelling and fleet.

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#18

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"MIDNIGHT IN PARIS"

Directed by Woody Allen

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Although it's essentially Woody Allen on repeat, no other romantic comedy this year was more fizzy or elegant. It takes the big-city romanticism of "Manhattan", the gooey nostalgia of "The Purple Rose of Cairo" and makes something admittedly minor, but palatable.

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#17

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"MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: GHOST PROTOCOL"

Directed by Brad Bird

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Never mind the Russian-nuclear hokum, this one was the most cocksure, high-wire, bemusingly enjoyable blockbusters of the year. Fancifully high-tech and yet brutishly physical, you won't find more extravagant stunt work anywhere. It's just too bad the last thirty minutes are so criminally rote.

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#16

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"THE ARTIST"

Directed by Michel Hazanavicius

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The much-ballyhooed French-produced silent film is, once you finally stop reading about it and actually see it, a predictably spirited, wistful and wily near-century-old throwback. Dujardin and Bejo are magnificent, as is the film's depiction of artists and their craft passing them by. 

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#15

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"SHAME"

Directed by Steve McQueen

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While I believe Steve McQueen's follow-up to "Hunger" is a bit too mannered and affected in places, its depiction of addiction - the neglect, the sputtering relationships, the need to be alone - breaches beyond just its subject of sex. 

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#14

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"WIN WIN"

Directed by Tom McCarthy

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Tom McCarthy is unequaled at these pocket portraits of unexpected relationships and "Win Win", although far from perfect, sees the actor/writer/director working away from the sullen race-relations of "The Visitor". 

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#13

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"JANE EYRE"

Directed by Cary Fukunaga

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Cary Fukunaga's unjustly disregarded sophomore feature may not have been thrilling news to fans of his debut, 2009's "Sin Nombre", but truthfully, this adaptation of the oft-adapted Charlotte Bronte novel makes for a compelling double-feature, both films about young, unprivileged misfits looking for a way out (or in). 

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#12

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"THE GUARD"

Directed by John Michael McDonagh

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Some consider this Irish debut, an irreverent buddy-cop comedy, a bit too routine, too minor, but I'm not only a big fan of Brendan Gleeson's heinous, foul-mouthed performance, but McDonagh's derisive, borderline-offensive sense of humor.

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#11

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"SUPER 8"

Directed by J.J. Abrams

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While J.J. Abrams' nostalgic nod to Steven Spielberg is a bit too clumsy, too cacophonous to work as a straight monster movie, it does work as a heartfelt family portrait of healing and self-discovery.

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#10

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"ATTACK THE BLOCK"

Directed by Joe Cornish

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This street-smart, urban-action debut may have caught fire at fervent geek-laden festivals, but the truth is, it's better than that. With muttering South London accents, a mostly black cast and a bass-thumping Basement Jaxx soundtrack, the film - an unlikely alien-invasion flick - has plenty of swagger, but the goods to back it up. Led by a terrific performance by teenager John Boyega as the hesitant leader of a petty street gang, the film constantly surprises with not only its pulsating, straight-brim style, but its constant sense of danger and character motivation. 

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#9

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"HANNA"

Directed by Joe Wright

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Easily the most memorably dexterous film of the first few months of the year, Joe Wright's sizzling fairy-tale thriller fuses art-film sensibility, style with familiar spy-movie tropes to produce something wholly unique. Wright, who previously flaunted his talents behind British prestige pictures like "Pride & Prejudice" and "Atonement", brings his signature camerawork and not-so-subtleties to the proceedings, but the film's storybook veneer suits it well.

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#8

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"TAKE SHELTER"

Directed by Jeff Nichols

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Visions of the apocalypse haunted plenty of auditoriums in movie theaters around the globe in 2011 and Jeff Nichols' sophomore feature "Take Shelter", the story of a husband and a father driven to near-insanity by visions (or premonitions?) or an impending storm, was certainly at the forefront of this movement. Although surrounded with trappings of sensationalist horrors and dreams, the film is truthfully, more about the insecurities and anxieties of marriage and fatherhood as it is about inquiries of sanity.

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#7

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"CONTAGION"

Directed by Steven Soderbergh

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No other studio-backed film this year exhibited a stronger sense of authorial presence than Steven Soderbergh's sickly viral-thriller "Contagion". With each frame wrapped in dread and submerged in detachment, the film, featuring a downright chilly, menacing electronic score, is like a glazed-over, hollowed-vision of our systematic, impending doom. Concerned far more with procedure than melodrama, the film will leave plenty rather chilly, I'd imagine, yet either way, I suspect it will - and has - scared the daylights out of skeptics and believers alike.

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#6

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"TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY"

Directed by Tomas Alfredson

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Ice-cold and precise to the last, Tomas Alfredson's immaculately-captured 60's Cold War spy-thriller is admittedly more "spy" than "thriller, yet through the film's otherwordly sense of detachment and rough-grain espionage, nuances of regret, redemption seep through.

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#5

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"THE TREE OF LIFE"

Directed by Terence Malick

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Although Malick's much-ballyhooed spiritual odyssey spans the entire spectrum of existence - from the dawn of the dinosaurs to the modern age - it is the film's meditation on the beauty and hardship of family life in 50's rural Texas that proves the most indelible. As a piece of craftsmanship, the film is breathless, almost effortlessly so. 

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#4

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"MELANCHOLIA"

Directed by Lars von Trier

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If Lars von Trier's previous film, "Antichrist" examined his own effects of depression in a delirious, ghastly manner, then "Melancholia" is the romantic reprieve. Split into two parts - a horrific wedding reception and a lonely, pondering of the inevitable - and bookmarked with two rapturous visions of the apocalypse, von Trier's most inoffensive film in years - with its mammoth crescendos - reintroduced the importance of the movie theater experience.

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#3

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"DRIVE"

Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn

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This fashionable, sunset-colored crime drama may be mannered or kitsch, but it doesn't come at the expense of its menace, prurience or vivacity. Filming Los Angeles like its 1985, Nicolas Winding Refn's most enjoyable, ably-stylized genre film is equal parts exhaust-fume muscle and retro-pink chic. 

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#2

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"MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE"

Directed by Sean Durkin

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Stunning in its structure and execution, Sean Durkin's carefully-crafted debut about the attempted recovery and escape of a young woman from the grasp of a deadly cult is just about the most disquietly arresting film of the year. Shuffling between past and present, the film unnerves, paralyzes and then teases with the prospect of the two timelines intersecting.

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#1

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"MEEK'S CUTOFF"

Directed by Kelly Reichardt

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Perhaps Kelly Reichardt's finest hour-and-a-half, "Meek's Cutoff", a beautifully spare, vivid anti-Western about a small convoy travelling through the Oregon territory who become consumed by doubt, endurance and survival, is a minimalist masterpiece. Composed of barren, terrifyingly immense long takes, the film blares down and sinks in like a sunburn as members of the convoy (including Michelle Williams as the catty Emily Tethrow) begin to doubt themselves and one another in the search for salvation - or in this case, just some water.

10. "Attack the Block"

9. "Hanna"

8. "Take Shelter"

7. "Contagion"

6. "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy"

5. "The Tree of Life"

4. "Melancholia"

3. "Drive"

2. "Martha Marcy May Marlene"

1. "Meek's Cutoff"

Best of 2011: Female Performances

5. Kirsten Dunst, "Melancholia"
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Working for the first time with Danish provacateur Lars von Trier, Dunst, with a glazed-over despondency, is the perfect conduit for von Trier's mediation on depression and the oncoming apocalypse. It's not until the film's second half, however that she really makes her mark with a few deadpan zingers about the futility of it all. "The earth is evil. Nobody will miss it." 
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4. Elizabeth Olsen, "Martha Marcy May Marlene"
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Sean Durkin's numbing, disquieting debut wouldn't nearly be as effective without Olsen's paranoid, tetchy performance as a young woman attempting to readjust to life outside of her former abusive, murderous cult. 
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3. Kristen Wiig, "Bridesmaids"
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In what was assuredly the best comedy of the year, those saying that Melissa McCarthy steals the film are quite wrongly disregarding the film's leading lady, whose cutesy comic-timing and priceless reaction shots quite rightly upstage any intestinal disturbances that emit from the supporting cast.
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2. Elle Fanning, "Super 8"
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In a film full of surprising performances, Elle Fanning, playing Alice Dainard - the teenage daughter to an alcoholic father and love interest to our imaginative protagonist - Dakota's younger sister is a revelation during her big scene at a train station. 
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1. Charlize Theron, "Young Adult"
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In perhaps the year's biggest discrepancy between performance and film, Theron's marginalized, alcoholic writer who shuffles back to her hometown to win back her high school crush is a fierce, fearless and impeccable performance, which is more than I can say for the film that contains it. 
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Honorable Mentions:
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Saoirse Ronan, "Hanna" - Feisty, deadly, vulnerable and only 16. 
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Carey Mulligan, "Shame" - A frightening, tragic and decidedly against-type performance from an actress beginning to take more risks. 
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Mia Wasikowska, "Jane Eyre" - Fukunaga's adaptation is steeped in sharp characterizations thanks to Bronte and his impeccable cast.
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Michelle Williams, "Meek's Cutoff" - A spotless, quiet-yet-catty performance from one of our finest actresses. Unfortunately she's getting attention for the wrong film. 
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Cameron Diaz, "Bad Teacher" - Never mind that the film is an awkward, one-note misfire, Diaz does her best bringing appeal to a superficial, potentially abhorrent character. 

Best of 2011: Male Performances

5. Brad Pitt, "The Tree of Life"
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As a temperamental, disciplinary father trying to raise his family in rural Texas in the 1950's, Brad Pitt's performance in many ways provides the backbone to Malick's odyssey on family, loss and creation. Both disquietingly menacing and vulnerable, Pitt fleshes out his capricious father figure with but a glance or a grimace. 
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4. Gary Oldman, "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy"
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As the muted, determined Mr. Smiley, Oldman's internalized central performance as the retired spy is in many ways the perfect compliment to the icy, cold precision of Tomas Alfredson's immaculately-crafted spy thriller. Though he hardly puts on a show, Oldman subtly, expertly portrays Smiley's redemption as he attempts to uncover the mole atop British Intelligence and recover his scandalous marriage and sullied career. 
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3. John Boyega, "Attack the Block"
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As Moses, Boyega transformed Joe Cornish's bass-bumping action film into a surprising tale of redemption. The mysterious leader of a petty street gang at first, Moses is hesitantly forced to play hero as he comes to realize that he's partly responsible for the attack. 
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2. Bruce Greenwood, "Meek's Cutoff"
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Kelly Reichardt's beautiful, spare anti-Western concerns the tumultuous, haggard journey through the Oregon terrain of a small group of settlers. Almost unrecognizable under a bushel of facial hair and a whiskey-growl, Bruce Greenwood - as the titular Stephen Meek, the group's cynical, ignorant frontier guide - is a revelation.
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1. Ryan Gosling, "Drive"
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Turning in what I believe to be his greatest performance, Ryan Gosling, an actor stuck on terrific, brooding, method performances ("Half Nelson", "Blue Valentine") pulls off one of the trickiest turns of the year in Nicolas Winding Refn's grime-and-chrome muscle-car crime drama, "Drive". 
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Almost mute, Gosling takes a perilously under-written character and fills in the rest, turning the unnamed 'Driver' into a smoldering, violent romantic with a wardrobe to die for. 
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Honorable Mentions:
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Tom Cruise, "Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol" - Nobody can pull off the physical, charismatic stuff he does here, much less at 49. 
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Alex Shaffer, "Win Win" - Nobody is talking about his contribution to that excellent ensemble. His introverted, blank blonde-haired wrestler Kyle was a wonderful debut.
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Brendan Glesson, "The Guard" - Gleeson's irreverent, foul-mouthed cop in the dry, winning Irish action-comedy was a one-man show. 
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Jean Dujardin, "The Artist" - No joke, his performance is so full of wit and non-verbal charisma, he's practically a silent star re-incarnate. 
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Michael Shannon, "Take Shelter" - Jeff Nichols' film is quite good and it doesn't work without Shannon's desperate, manic, but more importantly, sympathetic lead turn.